


Dust Gospel

by Delcat



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Eye Trauma, Fluff and Angst, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Mutilation, Trans Male Character, Trans Rhys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 02:32:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4648917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delcat/pseuds/Delcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone who's ever taken a road trip knows that dead spot in the desert where the only thing on the radio is the local brand of old-time fire-and-brimstone religion.  Everyone who's ever taken a road trip knows that that's when the tension gets high enough to snap strings.  If Rhys isn't careful, some things might break for good.</p><p>Takes place somewhere in the road trip intro of Chapter 3 of Tales From the Borderlands (Trust Jack Determinant).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegrinningcrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrinningcrow/gifts).



"--on that fateful day the mother Firehawk did descend, and found our sacrifices wanting! And lo, she did speak these words to our forebearing torches: 'Next time, meatier sacrifices, roasted straight on the bone, juicy and--'"  


There was a brief squeal of static as the caravan radio dial spun, picked up a new frequency.  


"--and I say to you brethren, there is an eye upon you, an eye upon us all, an eye ready to blink--"  


Again.  


"--for thy addiction is thy destruction, torn from the sweet music of pain with the promise of pleasure from the dust, but it is an abomination that man should lie with--"  


Again.  


"You ssssay to me, 'I can't, I can't get out, it's my brain!', and I sssssay that this is what you have reaped with your ssssins! You know your soul, and you know you have _derailed_ the _joyride_ of your _mind_ with perverssssions, and does the Ssssskag King not _say_ you have to go in to get out--"  


Again, again, again…  


"--glow on the horizon demands a dowry of one hundred, two hundred, three hundred foreskins, for what is pledged three times is true, so bring forth your bounty to the altar! Do not be ashamed, brethren, but be called forward, I still sense you holding back--"  


"Rhys, give it up. You've been all the way around, like, three times now."  


Rhys made a sulky noise at Sasha as she climbed up to the bridge, pointedly not giving up. "There's gotta--look, it's like safecracking, you just have to be patient and you'll hit that sweet spot that isn't--"  


"--FOR THE BLOOD OF THE MIGHTY SHALL PROTEEEEECT US FROM THE LICK OF THE SLAG--"  


Rhys winced at the sudden uptick in volume and wrenched the dial. "--whatever that is other than _apparently really popular_."  


"Okay, two things. One, I've actually cracked safes, and your technique is terrible--"  


"--a los locos hay que tratarlos con cariño--"  


"--and two, that is literally all there is." Sasha leaned on the railing, crossing her arms. "We're in a Bandit Belt."  


Rhys exhaled and tried a frequency he was fully aware he had tried at least four times since the last trace of music had cut out a half-hour ago. "Bandit Belt?"  


"Yeah. One cult decides another cult is getting too uppity, they start taking over as many radio beacons as they can to spread their holy moonshine or whatever..."  


"--fuerza de Dios, el mal tomo su piel, tomo su voz--"  


"...the other guys start icing people to get more ECHO space for _their_ god of the week, and before you know it..."  


"--cannot save those wretched and lost souls without the blessing of your donations--"  


Sasha was the one to shrug and look disgusted this time. "Miles and miles of nothing but _that_."  


"--so open up your hearts and wallets, for yea it is written that the corrosion pits of Hell await those who would turn a blind eye--"  


Rhys laughed weakly. "Of course. Of course that's a thing. Why should I expect anything else? It's Pandora, where everything is terrible all of the time--"  


The venom in Sasha's expression would have cut him off if the sudden vice grip of his cybernetic hand didn't, the radio shrieking static as the dial ripped out of the console.  


"Fixed it! Don't have to thank me, pumpkin. By the way, that noise? Yeah, that's what your head sounds like. All the time. Except this...yeah, I'd say this is more pleasant."  


Rhys kept his eyes fixed on the road through the hazy blue of Handsome Jack's chest, trying to get the gist of Sasha verbally gutting him through Jack's blithe chatter. At least he had earned the gutting. He was fairly sure he hadn't earned two straight hours of Jack lying on the dashboard like an enormous housecat, sniping at him whenever he got bored with whatever music was playing, which was often. That kind of thing had to be reserved for someone who had pissed off the entire laundry list of deities he had been given the elevator pitch on since they entered the canyon.  


"--sorry you get all _your_ brainwashing for your murder god-king on a pristine satellite connection while you kick back on your orphan-skin rug, but hey, at least _we_ don't get ads. Which is funny, because we still have souls to sell, and last I checked, that was the only currency Hyperion accepted."  


"Sash, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, I'm just--"  


"'On the rag'. Say 'on the rag'. It's, it's topical humor, she'll love it."  


The dial crunched into a tiny metal ball in Rhys' fist.  


"--really. Tense." He forced his hand to unclench and sighed heavily as Sasha narrowed her eyes. "You're right, okay? I'm not used to this, you are. I'm trying, I swear, I just..." He gripped the freshly exposed wires gingerly and twisted them back together, a quick fix to stop the static. "...need some peace and quiet or _I am going to drive straight off a cliff_."  


"Okay, big guy, maaaaybe I should take the wheel for a bit."  


Rhys didn't move immediately, glaring at Jack as he stretched and yawned.  


"Fine, fine, I can take a hint...poorly veiled threat, whatever. Hey, it's great! You're bonding. It's cute, it's real cute. And useful. Go on, mingle! Get on some good sides! 'Cause you are doing so, so well at that right now, kiddo."  


Sasha was saying something, but all Rhys could do was try not to flinch as Jack leaned in and patted his cheek, a different kind of static biting at his port.  


"Countin' on ya, pumpkin. Don't fuck this up for us, okay? Okay."  


Jack's form disappearing was like a headache clearing up that you didn't know you had, except it just made Rhys realize that he did have a headache, and like Jack, it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. He also realized Sasha had taken the liberty of stepping on the brake. He slumped out of the driver's seat and turned to lean against the console, closing his eyes.  


"And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it far from thee, for it is better to enter into life with one eye than to be cast into Hell--"  


Rhys reached up to twist the wires again as the caravan rumbled back to life, and the broadcast cut out for good.  


"Gross, right? And you Hyperion assholes call warboys psycho."  


It was a jab without malice, Sasha's way of clearing the air, and Rhys managed a weak smile at her. "I apologized for that one too. Twice. You're running out of material."  


She smirked back before looking ahead, the wound sealed for the time being. "Never. Can you get it back to the foreskins guy? That was getting good."  


"Yeah, I...I was actually going to ask if that was some kind of metaphor, or--"  


"Nope! Piles and piles of fresh, bloody, dismembered foreskins, all thrown on the altar like squoosh, squoosh, squoosh..."  


Head tucked tightly between his knees, Rhys reflected very hard on how much he liked Sasha, and how it was nice to see her cheered up, and how he had come to like a person who was cheered up so much by deliberately making him gag uncontrollably.  


"What happened here?"  


Rhys didn't respond to Athena as she descended the ladder, because the only response available was puking on her shoes, and despite remarks to the contrary, he was fairly attached to living at the moment.  


"Rhys saved us all from the big, bad pledge drive. He's a hero. A hero up past his big city bedtime."  


Athena didn't crack a smile, but Rhys wasn't sure she was capable of it. "We're all tired. There's a place coming up where we can stop for the night."  


"How soon? Do we have enough time to get the fight for the couch over with?"  


"Vaughn made that sleeping chart for a reason," Rhys mumbled.  


"Yeah, so he can rig it. It's not really subtle."  


Rhys became very interested in inspecting a scuff on his arm, definitely not looking at the couch as he made a quiet mental note to either pull back on how many adjustments he was making or look into this 'subtlety' thing.  


"Actually, we should all have rooms tonight. From what Gortys is saying, it's a little off course, but there's an abandoned hotel in Three Horns that still has a power well. It may take some work to get it running if it's down, but--"  


"--but that means supplies, and beds, and actual working showers?" Sasha drummed her fingers excitedly on the wheel. "Rhys, you and Vaughn are getting to me, because I could kill _babies_ for a hot shower."  


"No babies. Maybe a few skags."  


"Baby skags?"  


"There really isn't a difference."  


"Wait, between babies, or skags, or baby skags, or..."  


Rhys let the conversation fade into white noise, relaxing. A hot shower, a place to recharge--literally, he was starting to feel that heaviness in his arm that meant it was on its last legs, so to speak, and he could only leech off the caravan so much--room to stretch out, an actual bed--  


He hadn't realized how far he had let his head droop, and when he jerked upright, it thumped painfully on the console, making both women jump. He clutched it, eyes watering.

 

"Are you all right?"  


Rhys ducked Athena's hand. "Fine!"  


"He really is, he's done that, like...look, we should have started a running tally on how many times he's hit his head the first day we met up..."  


This wasn't fine.  


Nothing about this was going to be fine.  


Rhys swallowed thickly and ran a hand through his hair.  


"How long did you say we have before we get there?  


\----|  


The ride had taken twenty-eight minutes. Securing the area was buying more time, but Rhys had a feeling it wasn't worth much. He leaned on both arms on top of the caravan, trying to decide whether Athena talking to six-, seven-, twelve-foot-tall bandits or the endless, vaguely lewd rocking of the self-titled HAPPY PIG motel sign was the more worrying sight. He was leaning heavily toward the gyrating pig.  


"Hey, bro. Uh, room for two?"  


He hadn't heard the hatch open, and he almost said no, made the mistake of looking back at Vaughn, nodded mutely.  


"Sweet."  


Vaughn leaned up beside him, and for a moment it was almost comfortable. Almost, except Rhys wanted to tell him that he wasn't sure it was safe for him to stay on his right side anymore, not when he couldn't trust his cybernetics, and that made him feel like something inside of his chest was breaking off and floating around loose. It had been years since he'd tried to warn Vaughn off his bad arm, back when he was still breaking things and punching holes in walls because whatever he did, it just wouldn't _listen_ , and he couldn't stop picturing the kind of damage it might do to someone's _face_ , and Vaughn had…  


Vaughn had laughed it off, and said he was always going to be his right-hand man, and that he wouldn't hit him. And he hadn't. He had come close that very same night, reaching for the remote with his left hand and his right hand following suit, but it had stopped dead right before caving in Vaughn's chest, and he had given him that obnoxious told-you-so smirk, and it was all seeing how many different kinds of fruit he could explode with a quick squeeze and uploading the slow-motion video results to the ECHOnet after that.  


Vaughn was right about things.  


And that was the _really_ uncomfortable part, because twenty-eight minutes and change wasn't enough time to get ready for the argument they were about to have.  


"Rhys..."  


"What's she doing over there?"  


"Huh? Oh." Vaughn pushed his glasses up on his nose and squinted in Athena's direction. "She's, uh, making a deal."  


"A deal?" Rhys risked a glance over, hoping the distraction would last. "That doesn't sound very...creepy Vault Hunter-y."  


"The deal is that they give us food and don't come out of their...shack thing until we're gone."  


When he didn't go on, Rhys prompted, "And?"  


"That's it. That's the deal."  


For a moment of deep, mutual contemplation of murder and the chances of it happening in their sleep, there was silence except for the rusty squeaking of metal pig humping.  


"I hate it here," Rhys volunteered, breaking it.  


"Yeah, it's, it's kind of getting old. But hey, at least we get--"  


"I'm staying in the caravan."  


Vaughn sighed. "How did I just know you were going to say that."  


Rhys laughed nervously, smoothing back his hair. "Gotta fix that radio, right? The one I...broke, really hard. Well. Not too hard. I mean--hard enough, it'll--"  


"You can put that thing back together in two minutes. Less." Vaughn sighed again, more heavily, and gripped the railing. "Look, man, you can't just keep...pretending it's okay. They're worried about you. Fiona is worried about you, Sasha is worried about you, _Gortys_ is worried about you, the _creepy Vault Hunter_ is worried about you, _they are all worried about you_." He paused, adjusting his glasses again. "I...don't know if Dumpy is worried about you, it's hard to tell when all it does is make that _noise_ , but the point is--"  


"Okay. Okay! So, I tighten up things, I'm more careful, got it, I've just been--"  


"Rhys." There it was. " _I'm_ worried about you. Does that...even mean anything anymore?"  


"Of course it does!" It was a little too quick, a little too brittle around the edges, and he couldn't risk looking into Vaughn's eyes when he said it, so he tried again, emphasizing every word. "Of course it does. Vaughn, you're...you're my right hand man. Always. I just--"  


"Hey. Hey pumpkin, this is adorable, don't think it's not, but you and me, we've gotta talk."  


Rhys' shoulders tightened as Jack cut him off. "--need some space."  


"...I thought so."  


He realized what he said a heartbeat too late, as Vaughn was already leaving, and he whipped around, extending a hand. "Vaughn, wait--"  


"Have fun tonight, okay? You always do."  


The trapdoor slammed.  


"Hey, good job, tiger, pretty sure he was crying. I mean, he probably does that a lot, like, both of you just get together and sob at things--not even sad things, just things, someone shows you a kitten and you lose ninety percent of your water weight immediately at its cute widdle paws, kinda situation. Am I right? ...no?"  


Rhys couldn't look at Jack, and he couldn't unclench his fist from the railing even as it dented and warped, and he couldn't say a single thing that wouldn't make things worse.  


"Look, anyway, that's over, you and me, pal. I wanted to have a chat with you. Mano a mano."  


Rhys forced his hand open as the caravan door opened, ducking out of sight. "And it couldn't _possibly_ have waited _two fucking minutes_."  


"N--well, yeah, actually, it could have, but all the touchy-feely crap was getting to me, what can I say. So, back to me and you. Blasting those bandits back there..."  


He hadn't thought it was possible, but Rhys wasn't listening. He climbed down the ladder as Jack talked, motions numb and rote, taking off his jacket and tie and shirt and setting up the mirror the girls had salvaged to do the nightly check of his cybernetics. He wasn't thinking about Jack. He wasn't thinking about Vaughn. He was thinking that his arm really was getting low on power, starting to show its weight, he could see the red marks around his shoulder port and thought he could see the metal reinforcing into his ribs and all the way down his spine if he looked hard enough, could see straight through his body to every place Hyperion had left its branded, trademarked trail.  


What snapped him out of it was the absence of noise, and he blinked as he realized Jack was waiting on him for something.  


"...what?"  


"Son of a--" Jack's voice was briefly harsh with static, and he appeared directly in front of him, his hand warping through Rhys' skin as he attempted to knock on his skull. "Anyone _in there_ , princess?"  


Rhys flinched back, long legs catching on the edge of the couch, and he landed hard enough to jar back into reality with a vicious rush of emotion, shock finally broken, and his own voice scared him with how bitter it was. "--do you _fucking_ care about _anyone_ but yourself?"  


"Jesus, Rhysie, that is what I have been trying to hammer into that thick skull of yours, I am _trying_ to thank you for being a team fuckin' player--"  


"No. Shut up. Listen to me. Just _listen to me_ , okay, I listen to you, it--" He forced himself to tamp down his rage into low, even anger. "You want to thank me? Listen to me. My friends are important to me--"  


"--so I'm trying to say almost killing them, mistake, my bad, caught up in the moment--"  


"My friends are important to me and _Vaughn doesn't cry_."  


He didn't mean to say it, but it shut Jack up. He actually stopped talking, and Rhys couldn't stop himself from filling the silence.  


"Vaughn doesn't cry." He ran a hand through his hair, settled it on the back of his neck. "This one time, not long after--when Vazquez was in the picture, when he was just becoming a problem--"  


"--a problem that's no longer there, you're wel--"  


Rhys narrowed his eyes at Jack, and he stopped, crossing his arms.  


"...when he was just becoming a problem, he came up to me in the hallway, and he was saying...I don't remember, the usual shitty stuff, I was trying to just ignore it, and then he...he says 'By the way, your little friend in accounting lost these', and he drops something on the floor, and it." He stopped, evening his tone again. "It's his glasses. Broken. Really broken. Just...crushed." His lips quirked in something that wasn't really a smile. "It took us an hour to find him, because we were running around checking supply closets, spare rooms, dumpsters, and the entire time--" His lips spread a little wider, clenched teeth visible. "--the _entire_ time he was in the fucking _break room_ , beaten to _hell_ and back and bruised and bleeding and fucking _surrounded_ by corporate douchebags that didn't _give_ a shit."  


Jack waited as Rhys clenched his hands to steady them, then inclined his head to go on.  


"You know what he did? He laughed. Vasquez didn't do it himself, he wouldn't get those lily-white hands dirty, he must have had two or three people beating on him because he couldn't even _move_ , and he just. Vaughn laughed. That was all, laughed and thanked us for having his back and told us it was okay, that...that it'd be okay." His shoulders slumped. "He's not a joke. He doesn't cry. He's stronger than any two of us put together and if you say _one more thing_ about him--"  


"Hey. Rhys. Rhysie." Jack sat down next to him, putting a ghostly arm around his shoulders. "You and me--this is why we have to communicate, why didn't you just tell me what was going on?" He laughed, not unkindly for once. "I was just making an observation, I didn't know it was--y'know, _that_ much of a sore spot."  


Rhys exhaled shakily, burned out, little fragments of memory throbbing and spiking like a migraine.  


"Anyway, don't sweat it, kid. You'll do the same thing this time you did then."  


He thought of the night after, of how he had spent so long repairing and upgrading and jailbreaking his glasses that he had fallen asleep at his desk as soon as he was done, and how he had been woken up by Vaughn smiling from behind them, one eye still swollen shut and with the hospital smell still fresh on his clothes, but smiling all the same. "Fix things?"  


"Oh, no, kiddo. I was talking about the part where you kiss it aaaaaall better."  


Rhys was silent and cold and Jack's laughter drained the feeling from every part of him, flesh matching metal, bright copperplate numbness all the way down.  


"Oh my God, I--I'm sorry cupcake, but the look on your face--you should see it, it's fuckin' adorable, you--hahaha, you really thought I didn't _know_ , it's unbelievable--yeah, yeah, go to the mirror, you should see yourse--"  


" _Why?_ " The word tore out of him and took something with it, something vital. "If you knew then why--" Rhys stopped himself. He _knew_ why.  


"Good sides are useful, pumpkin, but you two...mm, no, uh-uh. Can't have that happening. Look, it's for your own good, you _know_ that. He turned on you the second you took your eyes off him."  


Blood was pounding in Rhys' ears, drowning out his own words, but not Jack's, never Jack's. He splayed his hands on the mirror, staring into the reflection, staring into a world where everything was backwards but Jack wasn't there, and God he wanted to be in it. He had wanted to keep him safe. He had pushed him away so hard and so far just to keep him _safe_ , and Jack had known. Jack had _known_. "He didn't have a choice."  


"Really? 'Cause from where I was watching, he had the same choice you did, and yoooou didn't take it." His tone changed, something that might have been sympathetic if it was from anyone else. "Look, kiddo, this is why I was trying to talk you down easy. You and me, we're a team. We can stay that way. We just gotta make a few changes. I've gotta know that as long as I'm riding shotgun in this pretty little head of yours, you're not gonna get it blown off by a bunch of _Christing_ bandits because you're charging in to save your boyfriend!"  


Jack's voice went static-harsh at the end, and he corrected himself as Rhys dropped his head. "Sorry, sorry...got a little carried away there, it's just, heh...it's both of our lives on the line, here. You understand, right, princess? ...Rhys?"  


Rhys reached up to rest his hand on his shoulder port, metal on metal, his voice quiet. "You know, back when it happened...those people just standing around, talking and drinking coffee while he was bleeding on the carpet...I thought that if you were there, you could have taught them something. I thought you could have changed things."  


"That's the spirit, buddy boy."  


"I was wrong."  


There wasn't any sensation in Rhys' cybernetics, but as he clenched his fist, ripping open his arm with an industrial screeching sound, programmed pain shot through his spine, pre-coded alarms to alert him the system was going down--good, _good_ , enough to stagger him against the mirror but enough to block out Jack screaming at him to stop, and as he detached the ruined arm and reached in to rip out his ECHO-eye his only thought was _should have done this the other way around_ , nausea hitting him hard in the gut as it yanked loose, harder as he grabbed the exposed wiring and twisted it out, and as it finally dropped he dropped with it, gasping breath, fingertips and lips tingling, tinnitus blasting in his ears, drowning everything out, drowning everything blessedly, completely out.  


He was free.  


He was safe.  


They were all safe.  


Something moved beside him.  


His lips formed Vaughn's name, but he couldn't hear his own voice.  


"Guess again, you _god. damned. idiot_."  


Rhys stood slowly, very slowly, his reflection rising with him, even more intangible than Jack now, ethereal.  


"Are you happy now? Are you fucking satisfied?" His voice was caustic, dangerous, overlapping itself in a squall of radio static, and when he emphasized words, they _hurt_ , a searing pain just behind his temple. "Did you enjoy your little temper tantrum? Who do you think is gonna clean this up, huh? Of all the _thick. fucking. skulls_ to get stuck in, I get crammed into your _stupid. broken. junk heap_ of a body!"  


Pain. Temple. Thick skulls. Thick _skull_.  


It didn't hurt to smash the mirror, although some part of him felt his knuckles being sliced open and reasoned that he should have saved his bad arm for that, too, but that wasn't important, what was important was picking through the shards for the right one, just sharp enough, just thin enough, and there was something almost blissful when he found it and started digging into the flesh surrounding the port, a release in the immediate flow of blood down into his empty socket, he was releasing himself, he was letting himself go--  


There was a crunching sound, and he paused, because it was close to his memories of metal scraping through flesh and on bone, but his memories of how that sound felt were closer, and they didn't match, and the sudden tight grip on his wrist brought reality back in around him like a rush of summer heat.  


"--Rhys, oh God, stop it, _stop it, please_ \--"  


He looked up at Vaughn, tried to say his name, couldn't. There was something reflected in his eyes that hadn't been in the mirror, something--  


Something worthwhile.  


"Y-yeah, bro, it's me, it...it's me, I've got you, just...please, put it down."  


Rhys slowly unclenched his hand, the mirror shard clattering wetly to the ground. He let Vaughn bring his wrist down as he knelt beside him, words still caught in his throat, suddenly shaking badly, or else aware for the first time that he was.  


"Good, okay, let's...let's just...you're gonna be okay, bro, I've got you, I just...oh shit, what happened, there's--you're bleeding a lot--I mean, you're gonna be okay, but--what--okay, never mind, just lean on me, okay?"  


Vaughn was so small next to Rhys, and it should have been awkward, but it wasn't the first time he had relied on his shoulder, and it fit, the same way it always fit. He let himself be helped up, led to the couch, and eased down, Vaughn jumping up again immediately, pulling his shirt off.  


"Did Jack do this? Can Jack do this? What were you--oh shit what happened to your _arm?_ "  


"Vaughn," Rhys managed, thickly.  


"Ohshitthat'syoureye. _Rhys_ \--"  


"Vaughn."  


"--did one of those--things, skags, a lot of skags just--break in and start gnawing on you and--"  


"Vaughn."  


"Hold _on_ this stupid thing won't--" Vaughn finally succeeded in tearing one sleeve off his shirt, folding it over on itself. "Okay, what, what, what--"  


He stopped at the sight of Rhys' outstretched arm and the clear track through the blood on his cheek.  


" 'm sorry."  


"Rhys..."  


Vaughn knelt on the couch, returning the embrace tightly, and Rhys closed his eyes, pressing his face into his hair. It fit, the same way it always fit.  


"I'm sorry," he croaked, then, again, because it was all he could think of, "I'm sorry."  


"H-hey, it's okay, you didn't...you're gonna be okay. We're..." Vaughn halted, pulling back, trying warily to read Rhys' expression.  


Rhys swallowed thickly. "Didn't want him to know." He tightened his grip. "...didn't want him to hurt you."

 

Understanding washed over Vaughn's face, his eyes widening, then going soft and sorrowful. "...he just did."  


"Well, if this isn't the cutest goddamn shitshow I've ever seen."  


Rhys winced and turned his head, and Vaughn screwed up his face.  


"Is it him?"  


"Vaughn, I am so--"  


"Stop. Apologizing, bro, it's--it's okay. I just...wish you had _told_ me, we could have done this together, I was starting to think that...you know, you and your hero--"  


"He's no hero."  


It was enough to put strength back in his voice, and Jack glared at him, pacing like a cat. Rhys glared back, then winced again and hissed in pain as Vaughn dabbed gingerly at the gash he had put in his forehead with the shirt scrap.  


"Sorry, sorry...okay, it's not...it isn't that bad. It'd be _better_ if we had anything remotely resembling actual real person medical supplies and not--I don't know, crazy murder bird livers or something--but the bleeding should stop if we bandage it." He hesitated, looking sheepish. "Uh...I don't really wanna dig in there, I know you hate that..."  


"Yeah...yeah, I'm on it." Rhys reached up to the wiring extruding from his empty eye socket and carefully twisted it together, wrapping the exposed ends into the center of the insulation. "Can you just--?"  


Vaughn lifted his eyelid gently, and Rhys tucked the wires inside. He closed both eyes as Vaughn continued destroying his shirt, tying the scraps together fastidiously.  


"Hey, news flash: Still right here, kiddo. You try to dig me out, all you're gonna end up with is an amateur lobotomy, which in light of your recent--you know what, _all_ of your behavior, I'm not sure you haven't had."  


"Patch okay?"  


Rhys nodded, and Vaughn placed the makeshift eyepatch before bandaging the wound, wrapping it liberally before tying it off.  


"Is that too tight?"  


"You cannot--I repeat, _cannot_ get rid of me. We're stuck like this. And instead of making the most of it, you're--you're what, waiting for the power of love to save the day? You are such a goddamned _tool_."  


He opened his eyes and managed a weak smile. "Feels okay."  


Vaughn returned the smile, but warily. "Uh...speaking of too tight, bro...how long...?"  


Rhys sighed wearily as Vaughn plucked at one strap of his binder. "I don't know, a while. ...okay, too long, I just--don't look at me like that, you know how it's been!"  


"Meaning...?" Vaughn inclined his head a bit toward the last place Rhys had clearly sighted Jack. He had moved since, was leaning against the wall and regarding them both coldly, but Rhys got the idea.  


"No, he knows, I mean he--kinda has to, but--" Rhys huffed and looked away, his cheeks coloring. "Athena, okay, it's bad enough looking like a moron in front of a Vault Hunter, I don't want to...y'know."  


Vaughn put out his hand insistently, and Rhys made a harassed sound and stripped the binder off, exhaling heavily as he took it, feeling his lungs expand.  


"Aw, bro..." Vaughn ran his fingertips over the red marks on Rhys' shoulders, and he tried not to squirm at the pins-and-needles feeling. "You've gotta stop doing this. Hold still, okay?"  


He nodded grimly and gripped the couch back as Vaughn started massaging out his chest. He was thorough about it, as always, rubbing in light, brisk circles with his thumbs, letting Rhys' skin wake up slowly, switching around to his back to give him a break when it got to be too much. It _had_ been too long, it stung like hell, and it was giving his headache a run for its money, and Jack had been quiet too long which meant he was gonna burst any second--  


"You goddamned-- _fucking hell, what is wrong with you assholes?_ " Jack slammed one fist on thin air, then threw both his arms back, livid. "You just ripped your own _fucking_ eye out, you're in Christing _pieces_ , and both of you are okay with this all of a sudden? You shitheads think this is _normal?_ "  


_Normal._  


Rhys looked at Jack, over Vaughn's shoulder, at the shattered mirror, at his mangled prosthetic arm and the unseeing eye on the floor, at the thousand broken pieces in the room, and he looked down at Vaughn as he patiently coaxed the hurt out of his weary shoulders, and at the concern in soft blue eyes that only ever saw a whole. And he knew there was nothing he could say to make this madman understand the worth in that.  


Instead, Rhys put an arm around Vaughn and glared evenly at Jack, flipping him the bird.  


Yes. This was normal. And for the first time since seeing Handsome _goddamned_ Jack's face, he realized how much that counted.  


"You're--you're serious, aren't you?" Jack shook his head slowly, anger dissolved into deep disappointment. "Rhys, buddy--come on, I could give you the world, here!"  


"No," he mumbled into Vaughn's neck, "Got it already."  


"Jesus _Christ_ , if you could hear yourself..." Jack put his face in his hands and shook his head slowly. When he came back up, there was a smile on his lips, wide, blank, empty. "You're gonna regret this. And you're gonna come cryin' back to ol' Jack. And when you do..." He didn't laugh, but chuckled, soft and low, and Rhys shivered despite himself. "...oh, we are gonna _enjoy_ that day, pumpkin. You and me _both_."  


Vaughn stopped as Rhys shuddered, following his gaze to where Jack was fading out of sight. He looked down again, voice tentative. "So, uh...what's he saying?"  


"Just..." Rhys realized his shoulder was cramping, the port working as he tried to clench a fist that wasn't there, and forced himself to relax. "...just the usual bullshit. Like having one of those stupid kiosks, in your head, all the...all the time." He crooked his arm around Vaughn's neck lightly. "He's gone."  


"You sure?"  


No, not entirely, not how it was these days, but he was getting better at picking up Jack's patterns, and he had gone somewhere else to fume. And plan, but he didn't want to think about that. Not now. "Just you and me."  


He ruffled Vaughn's hair, and he smiled. "So, uh...if he knows--"  


"I love you, bro. Always." Rhys held him tighter, the words feeling so good coming off his tongue again.  


Vaughn sighed into his shoulder, hugging back. "Love you too, bro."  


There was a long silence, really comfortable this time, all the way.  


Back to normal.  


"I think you're done bleeding." Vaughn eventually ventured, pulling back to look up at him. "Mostly. How do you feel?"  


Rhys slowly smirked at him, tilting his head, and Vaughn laughed weakly. "You...cannot be serious."  


"It's been _months_."  


"Like...a month, tops, unless you forgot celebrating your promotion early..."  


"Oh no. I would _not_ forget that. But...c'mon..."  


Vaughn nudged at Rhys as he started nuzzling against him. "You know, I probably--I really should have figured it out when you were acting all surprised about my abs, I was wondering, I just thought I didn't get the joke--"  


"To be fair, you didn't. And it was a good one. Cut? Doctor? Do you still not--it was good." Rhys slid a hand down Vaughn's back, inching him closer.  


" _Doctor_." Vaughn pushed back insistently, not quite fast enough to hide a tiny shiver. "You're not in any state to...do stuff."  


It would have been fair to reason things out, to point out that they'd 'done stuff' under worse circumstances, that they both needed a break, that Vaughn had started it by going Rambo and tearing his shirt up, but from what brief, hellish contact he'd had with it, Rhys was fully of the opinion that Pandora was not a world that endorsed fighting fair.  


Instead, he pressed his face into Vaughn's neck and exhaled a heavy, low-pitched, needy whine over his skin, a maneuver that Vaughn always protested as some kind of war crime of love, always after making it vigorously and in an extended fashion.  


" _Shit, bro--_ "  


Rhys grinned at the strangled whimper and pulled him back onto the couch.  


\----  


There was one question left to be asked, but Rhys took his sweet time asking it.  There was a dusty green and blue glow filtering through the window, intense and soft in turns, and he watched it for as long as he could, head resting on Vaughn’s chest, listening to him breathe.  He only ventured his name when his breathing got a little too quiet, the familiar rhythm of not-quite-awake.  "Vaughn?"  


"Mnh?" Vaughn shook his head, clearing it. "Sorry, what?"  


"You came back...really fast. I mean, after what I said. I would've been mad a while. If it was me."  


"Oh, uh..." Vaughn laughed shakily. "Yyyeah, that. Uh, there was--there's this one room in, uh, the hotel that Athena said not to go into, and..." The chuckle bottomed out from nervous into anemic before disappearing into a terse whisper. "Look, I was still pretty mad but given a choice between bunking with you when we're fighting and sleeping in a room next to some psy--warboy human sacrifice ritual bloodsport _thing_ , I--it put things in perspective. Really close, really detailed perspective."  


"Well, that's Pandora for you." Rhys stretched lazily, wincing as his wounds grumbled about it. "Perspective."  


"It's--it was growing on me. Before. There are a whole lotta skulls in there, man." Vaughn laughed again, very weakly. "Whoooooole lotta skulls. It's a mess."  


Rhys pulled himself up by the back of the couch and looked around. "Not much better in here."  


"No, it really--it is. You didn't start, uh, painting stuff. Like, not with paint. Blood. There are eyes, and the eyes are--they're painted in blood. A lot of it." Vaughn followed him up, straightening his glasses. "But...yeah, this is gonna take some explaining."  


Rhys sighed mutely. "You think I should tell them."  


"I don't think there's much of a choice left, bro."  


"Athena's gonna kill me. I mean that literally. She is going to murder me, and then she's going to give the scraps to Fiona, and _she_ is gonna share them with _Sasha_ , and Sasha hits so hard I am _sure_ dead people can feel it--"  


"So have her aim for Jack?"  


Rhys snorted. "Okay. Okay, so...first things first."  


"You wanna, uh, practice it?" Vaughn brightened a little, smiling widely. "It's been a while since I've been your captive audience, dude. You know I'm good for it."

 

"No, uh...really first things first."  


"Yeah?"  


"Help me find my pants."  


\----  


Miraculously, no one murdered either of them. Fiona came close and Sasha came closer, but Vaughn was, in fact, the best sounding board Hyperion had ever produced, and after a few practice rounds while they gathered up clothes and body parts, Rhys had honed his speech to a razor point. With Vaughn’s coaching, it kept a reasonable enough level that they were simmered down into a silent rage by the opening apologies, quiet suspicion by the carefully timed detailing of punching himself in the face repeatedly, and almost sympathetic by the closing "I really fucked up". He was fairly sure that the sorry state he was in didn't hurt matters, and normally that would bother him, but Pandora was a place of perspective, and part of that perspective was feeling like you should really get your money's worth out of ripping your eye wholesale out of your head.  


Athena, surprisingly, was the most sympathetic behind Gortys, who had latched onto Rhys' leg as soon as she saw him in an attempt, as she put it, to 'hug the sads away'.  


As they thoroughly cleaned up the caravan--thoroughly, Sasha's sudden clasp of her hands to her mouth and 'Please-please-PLEASE tell me you didn't have sex on the couch' had been greeted with guilty looks, which had been greeted with general noises of disgust, which had been greeted with both scrub brushes and awkward questions from Gortys--Athena had explained to them that she knew Jack better than a lot of people. She had explained that she knew just how easily he could get under someone's skin, a turn of phrase that Rhys was absolutely sure she picked to make his _own_ skin crawl.  


Athena knew a lot of things, it turned out. And a lot of people.

 

"I wish you had just come to me right away. May not be much of a human doctor, but I can certainly fix machines up all right."  


Rhys craned his neck from where he was sitting, trying to catch a glimpse of his arm and hastily glancing away from the blinding spot of a welding torch. "Urrrgh, be gentle..."  


"It's just fine, sweetheart, haven't lost a soul yet. Not that a lot of people strictly believe robots have souls, but I think so, you know? Something in the buggers' eyes. If they have 'em, at least."  


He tried not to fidget, an effort made even more difficult by Athena's weary glare. Handsome Jack she could handle. Apparently a long, _long_ talk with her girlfriend about the current state of affairs was harder.  


"It's just...taking a while."

 

"Almost done, two shakes." The torch switched off, and Janey Springs pushed back her mask, casting a cheery smile back at her patient. Or from her patient. Rhys wasn't sure how she was differentiating them. "There."  


As she placed the prosthetic gently in his lap, Rhys laughed, surprised. "This--are you sure this is my arm?"  


"Well, I took a couple liberties I don't think you'll mind, put in lighter materials where I could, updated the joints, cleaned up some nonsense holding back the stabilizers, and switched the power over to solar. Shouldn't have to worry about low batteries anymore. But it's all you, I didn't change the interface at all."  


Rhys locked it into the port gingerly and hesitated. It felt...good. Better than it ever had after routine maintenance on Helios.  


"Go on, then. Give it a go."  


Taking a deep breath, he slowly lifted it, then turned it. He flexed each of the fingers in turn before making a fist, then uncurled them, looking around.  


He had been scared off twice by Athena, but Vaughn was hanging nervously around the doorframe again, looking anxiously in at Rhys. He tilted his head questioningly.  


Rhys grinned and twitched his index finger and thumb, bringing up a simple projection:  


♥  


The blush on Vaughn's face wasn't quite as wide as his grin, and he flashed Rhys two thumbs up.  


"Sweetheart, stop it, it's adorable. You don't mind when I look at _you_ like that."  


Athena heaved a very, very heavy sigh, but moved her death gaze from Vaughn to the ceiling.  


"All right, luv, you just sit back and relax." Janey put her mask down again. "I've got _plans_ for this eye."  


That should have been a nerve-wracking statement, but Rhys felt out of nerves to wrack. He obeyed instead, leaning back, closing his eyes, and humming tunelessly to himself as he flexed new joints.  


It took a little while, but his smile faded. Jack hadn't shown up since the night before. Wherever he was, he was planning, and hard. If someone else didn't try to bring the world crashing down on them first, Jack would.  


"Rhys!"  


He looked around, then down. "Hey, how's everybody's favorite sphere?"  


Gortys waved a hand cheerfully. "Oh, _you_. Listen, I still don't really know why everyone got mad, but...I know the radio was bothering you, and that everyone had a really, _really_ bad day, so I asked Sasha if it was alright, and she and Fiona and _everybody_ helped me make _this!_ "  


He carefully took the ECHOnet recorder from her outstretched hands, and she spun in a circle. "It's a mix of really good songs to make everyone happy again! So...next time people get mad, we can dance and stuff, and it'll be okay!"  


The recording had a label on it in Sasha's handwriting, reading "Screw Jack Mix #1: Better Get Ready To Die (Again)".  


Rhys grinned.  


Handsome _goddamned_ Jack would never know what hit him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For my dearest darling dove, until all of our nerds are home safe. JTOR:EL


	2. FAQ/Notes/References

  * **FAQ**


  * Are we finished here?



  
This is actually going to have an illustration of sorts courtesy of [Icarus](https://www.patreon.com/notfun?ty=c), probably before the month is out.  There is also going to be an explicit version.  Hot bangin' unf unf.  


  * Why not hot bangin' now, cowboy?



  
I'm actually excited to be releasing a fic in both explicit and non-explicit forms.  I have a fair number of ace friends all across the spectrum, and one has come to me before requesting edited versions of my Don't Starve fics so that they can read them comfortably just for the plot (someone reading my fics for the articles, as it were, is just as surprising to me as it is to you, believe me).  
  
Unfortunately, there's so much friggin'...friggin' going on in The Skies We're Under that it's intertwined directly with most of the plot and character development, so the fics from my "Deboned Zone" folder are passed along with lengthy explanation of what's missing.  Here, I have the luxury of being able to jump between line breaks without breaking anything in between.  's cool.  
  
Also I am so so so tired and I can't the sex right now.  I can't.  Sorry.  Soon.  Sooooooon.  


  * Warboy?



  
Look.  It ain't 2010 anymore.  If we can rebrand "Psycho" as a Hyperion slur for something infinitely better, I'm all for it.  Special thanks to Tumblr fandom in general for supporting this, although weirdly, I think a lot of us started using it organically before seeing any starter posts.  It's just that natural.  


  * [Did you rip off the "if thy eye offend thee" thing from thegrinningcrow?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4362815)  Did you?  DID YOU?  HMMMMMMM?



  
thegrinningcrow is my fiance (in other surprising and amazing things news).  I pitched the line to them during a Skype chat when it came to me, and we split two different ways on it.  While I'm pointing fingers, I'd like to thank Crow for helping me flesh out the idea of Vasquez breaking Vaughn's glasses, constantly enabling me, providing a good handful of the quotes for the Spin the Dial section (full list below), and being a kind and patient beta.  And for having really pretty eyes.  Gosh.  Like I mean everything about them is awesome, that's just my thing of the day.  Rill pretty eyes.  Schmoopy face.  


  * Should Rhys be able to cry with his eye out?



  
Another thank to Crow for asking this.  A responsible and morally upright prosthetics manufacturer would follow through on a bionic eye to have a shutdown system for the accompanying tear duct in case of malfunction, as water and circuitry do not mix.  Unfortunately, Hyperion in general and Dr. Nakayama especially have been proven to be neither of these things.  This also applies to linking malfunction alarms to pain receptors instead of caring enough to set up _literally any other kind of alert, including an actual auditory alarm._   However, I can only assume this is what's happening, as Rhys would otherwise be rocking out custom ringtones for system failure in canon.  This is the same reason Janey is able to upgrade his arm so quickly and effectively--Hyperion does not give a flying eff about its employees.  Not a single one.  


  * What's next?



  
Counting coffee mugs and using them to tally sleep regret.  Having sleep regret.  Continuing to wonder why one of my fandoms writes almost exclusively in past tense and one writes almost exclusively in past tense.  
  
Maybe a little bit more.  
  
Who knows.  
  


  * **Trivia/Didn't Make the Cut:**



\--I briefly planned Dr. Zed as the end cameo before realizing that made absolutely no sense.  I was a little afraid of writing Janey because I haven't spent much time with her, but she was no trouble at all.  What a cute.

\--Speaking of cute, I really wanted to have Gortys launching herself from the geysers in the area a bazillion times, but there wasn't room for it and anyway it'd probably damage her pretty badly.  But it would have been adorable.

\--Yes, there is an area!  There is in fact an abandoned motel in Borderlands 2 called the Happy Pig, which I scouted out extensively before choosing as a location.  For screencaps and directions, check this behind-the-scenes post (boopadoop placeholder please hold on generating).

\--I've been planning this since July, which was a rough month on me, and through August, which is competing for rougher.  Rhys yelling "This is Pandora, where everything is terrible all of the time" has been the single most cemented part of this fic because of it.

 

  * **References from the Spin the Dial section, in order:**



  
\--Freestyle  
  
\--Powerman 5000: An Eye Is Upon You  
  
\--Phantom of the Paradise credits, song, The Hell Of It:  
"Good for nothing / bad in bed / super destructive, you were hooked on pain, / and  
though your music lingers on, / well all of us are glad you're gone."  
  
chopped up and retooled, thank you Crow  
  
\--Line from Cartoon All-Stars To the Rescue with freestyling on the scene in question, plus a Jim Morrison ref and sticking the landing on Peter Gabriel, thank you Icarus (and thank you creepy fire-and-brimstone preacher from the first church I ever went to for those freaking extended "s"s, I don't know where you are now but probably you are still embezzling church funds)  
  
\--Simon Garfunkel: Bright Eyes to start, freestyling, reference to The Hunting of the Snark, freestyling  
  
\--FREESTYLING SNAKE HANDLER STYLE  
  
\--A line from the Disney dub of Alice in Wonderland, said before the March Hare smashes the watch, literally translated "Mad people should be treated NICELY", thanks Crow  
  
\--"Sonaron las campanas / ¡Era la fuerza de Dios! / El Mal tomó su piel, / también  
tomó su voz. / Nunca aprendió el inglés, / el exorcismo será hoy. / "I love you,  
love you so." / "I love you, love you so.""  
  
_translated_  
  
"The bells rang / It was the force of God! / Evil took her skin, it also took her  
voice. / She never learned English / the exorcism is today."  
  
thanks Crow  
  
\--freestyling Don Bakker style  
  
\--freestyling Don Bakker style  
  
\--Bam there's the verse nailed, copyright The Actual Bible like five times, I pulled from Proverbs for this iteration

Thanks to everyone who pulled together for the weird warcry of "So I want a torrent of fundamentalist jargon, but like with song lyrics and drug propaganda and stuff, throw me lines"!

**Author's Note:**

> For my darling dearest dove, until all our nerds are home safe. JTOR:EL


End file.
